All for Want of a Couple of Pennies

Today has been an 'interesting' day.  I went out, which makes it rather interesting in my world since I'm practically agoraphobic, and went to sell off a gold locket my parents gave me a long time ago.  I don't speak to them (for the reasons, you'll have to read back through my blog - there are many), so there's no sentimental attachment to it, and I'm unable to wear gold.  Gold is an alloy, and unless it specifically says nickel-free then it quite probably has nickel in it.  I'm allergic to nickel, ergo I can't wear most gold.

Anyhoo, my point is I took it in to a Money Mart only to find out it was gold-filled, which isn't what it sounds like.  Gold-filled should actually be called 'filled gold', because it means it isn't filled with gold.  It's gold-plated basically.  Now this thing was stamped as 14kt, so I thought I might get a few bucks for it so I could buy cat food.  No dice.  If it had been gold, I would have been able to buy the cat food and a bunch of other things on top of it.  Instead I came home to scrounge for change.  This is the problem with being disabled.  You live very close to the line, financially.

I found a bag of cat food at Walmart (normally I do not buy that kind of crap for my pets, but desperate times call for temporary cheap food supplies), for $2.57, but with taxes it's $2.90.  It turns out we had $2.88.  Huh!  Well, that's okay.  We got a couple of cans of food that will last until the end of the month.  The babies will make it, and so will we.  Canned food only has about 10% protein in it, which isn't great for animals that are obligate carnivores (ferrets and cats are both supposed to eat only meat, which is why regular cat foods are terrible).  Oddly the canned food has less protein than a lot of kibbles.  You'd think it would be more.  (For more information on proper nutrition for cats, you can read my article on it here.  I generally follow my own advice on this, but this is a rare exception.)

What was so interesting about my day, aside from the near panic attack of it being Christmas Eve and knowing the stores would be closing early, nothing would be open tomorrow, so we had to get the cat food today?  Well, finding out my parents are really cheap was interesting.  If you consider how much money they make, it's absolutely ridiculous to buy someone a gold-plated locket.  Either that or they're just stupid about jewelry.  Both are possible.  It was supposed to be a big family tradition that all the women were to be given gold lockets.  Every female in my step-father's family has one, but like the fake relationship I had with him and his family, so too was the locket.

The second interesting part was that I got to find out what happens when someone throws up on a bus.  I got on the bus after the incident, thank goodness, because I'd have been heaving right alongside the kid if I hadn't.  My cats hacking up hairballs get me gagging.  Well, basically they call in another bus as they empty out the messy bus.  I just happened to get on before the clean bus got to the route.  Instead of the driver just grabbing a paper towel and some Windex or something, they have to bring in another bus so they can hose the bus down properly.  If you think about it, though, it makes sense.  The kid could be HIV positive for all anyone knows.  Sad, but true.  Bus drivers are not paid to handle bio-hazardous waste, which is what vomit is.

I also discovered that a lot of places no longer have the 1kg box of cat food anymore (2.2 pounds for those of you using standard measurements).  It's all in the bigger bags, which would have been fine if I'd had the additional two pennies.  Of course, I'll probably find 12 pennies in the near future and want to bang my head on a wall for missing them during the initial frantic search.  That's the problem when you're in a rush.

As much as I finally have my regular bills in order, things are extremely tight financially.  On top of that there are the vet bills.  I can't have my animals go without vet care.  It's not fair to them, just because I'm having issues, so I do whatever I can think to do.  There are places that offer emergency food for pets, as well as helping financially with emergency vet care.  I may have to take them up on the latter, because my ferret might need more help than I can scrounge up for him personally.  I qualify for it, being on disability, and it's done through the OVMA (Ontario Veterinary Medical Association).  The vets themselves have pulled together the fund to help people, so they don't have to put their animals down when they could be saved.  There's a cap, though, so it will only help so much, but it's better than nothing.

Most people don't even know there's help out there for emergency vet care.  The AAHA used to help, but they can't anymore, but there are others.  You just have to Google it and you'll find either the humane society in your area will provide some assistance, or there's Angels4Animals, which is based in the US, but will help in Canada as well.  There are other places, too, so don't give up if your animal needs emergency vet care.  Don't let your pet suffer if there's no need for it.

All is right with the world today, however.  The animals have food for a few more days, which will take us to the end of the month, and we have food in the cupboard for ourselves.  We have a couple of Christmas movies to watch, and we're alive.  Things will get better.  I'll get my surgeries done so I don't have to live on pills, which will mean the ability to get cracking on my business again.  Once I can do that we can get back on our collective feet.  Things could definitely be a lot worse.  Being broke certainly isn't the worst thing that can happen, as long as you can figure out a way to make it through.  In the words of Tim Allen in Galaxy Quest, "Never give up.  Never surrender!"